Joe Budden’s charges could be upgraded after it was revealed that his neighbor’s minor daughters saw him standing butt naked outside their apartment.
Budden, 44, was charged with trying to enter a neighbor’s apartment while wearing only his birthday suit. The retired rapper-turned-podcaster was hit with a lewdness charge after the incident on December 4, 2024.
Edgewater police were called to the New Jersey apartment complex by a resident who complained that Budden was standing butt-naked outside her apartment door. Ring camera footage allegedly shows the podcaster entering a code into the resident’s door keypad multiple times before returning to his own apartment across the hall.
“On December 4 at approximately 07:21am, The Edgewater Police were dispatched to an apartment complex for the report from a resident that a man was standing outside of their apartment door completely naked,” according to the police report.
Budden may face more charges because the woman’s underage daughters witnessed his nudity on their mother’s cell phone.
Budden seemed to respond to the allegations via social media on Tuesday (Dec. 31).
“Y’all so dramatic,” he wrote in a post on X (Twitter).
Budden suggested he was sleepwalking when the incident occurred.
“I just sleptwalked somewhere I shouldn’t have sleptwalked,” he said. “You know how I sleep. Butt-a*s [naked]. Nice naked-a*s, good naked sleepwalk. I just did it again.”
His attorney, Nima Ameri, called out the police chief for targeting a Black man. She said the police department’s press release was “inflammatory and slanderous”.
“The allegations against Mr. Budden are a minor charge, not even resulting in an arrest. A charge Mr. Budden is looking forward to beating in court on the merits, not in the press,” Ameri told TMZ. “The chief’s comments are reckless and, in our opinion, racially motivated.”
“Had Mr. Budden not been a prominent Black voice for his community, we do not believe such a press release would have been issued over these mediocre allegations,” she added.
